


Coram Nobis

by originalPseudonym



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, POV Second Person, POV Terezi, dream bubble shenanigans, terezi gets her shit together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 13:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1389001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/originalPseudonym/pseuds/originalPseudonym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"A coram nobis petition applies to persons who have already been convicted of a crime and have served their sentence. It may seek to remove probation requirements or restrictions, eliminate payment or obtain refund of court imposed fines, remove a public stigma, and so forth, in order to restore, so far as possible, the erroneously convicted party to a pre-conviction state"</i>
</p><p> </p><p>-Human Wikipedia, probably</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coram Nobis

It took you a while to figure out that he made you kill her.

Well, scratch that. He didn’t _make_ you kill her. Not literally, at least. He may have limited your vision, but he didn’t control you. He didn’t force you to drive the blade through her back. That was you, and you know that. You aren’t ignoring that! You’ve never ignored that, not even for a second.

But he may as well have given you the blade to do it, because he sure as hell helped. There were more than two options, when it came to Vriska. There’s no way paradox space would only allow two outcomes to your showdown with her, she was too important. She had too much of an impact. Time isn’t your specialty, but given the scope of things, your options couldn’t have been as limited as you saw. There had to be more.

Yes, there had to be. But the Bard of Rage made it so you couldn’t see them.

It wasn’t until that you stopped wallowing in your own faygo-fueled misery, stopped letting him touch you as you grew increasingly disgusted with yourself, that you realized it; No, he may not have forced you to kill her. But he did force you to choose between a timeline where you were dead, and a timeline where she was.

And so you make a decision. You obscure your vision with a makeshift blindfold, so you can really s _ee_ , without the distraction of headache-inducing brightness. You go after him. You may have been black for him, once, for reasons not even you can discern. But now, you’re hate is nothing but platonic. And you’re going to kill him.

* * *

He beats you to death in minutes.

In hindsight – ha – it shouldn’t have been a surprise.  He’s stronger than you, and he knew how to play the game. He made you think of her, and then he snatched you up and broke nearly every bone in your body, just by throwing you around. Then he killed you.

You haven’t been dead for very long. At least that’s what Aradia tells you. She helps you remember what happened, but it takes some time. She is just as clueless as you are. She didn’t expect you to die. She tells you this, and she almost sounds sad.

She notes your blindfold and helps you find your cane and a pair of your glasses in a memory of your hive. She hands the latter to you humbly, like she’s presenting a gift. But when you take them from her, you just hold them in your hand uselessly.

“Sorry,” you say to her. You bend your head down, ashamed. “Vision makes my head hurt.”

She looks perplexed for a moment, and then flashes a smile at you. “Don’t worry about it!” she says. “I wasn’t aware you could see again, though. How did that happen? Was your sight healed when you died?”

“No,” you say, a little bitterly. “Vriska’s ancestor did it.”

Now, she frowns at you. “You don’t sound too happy,” she says, curious.

“Like I said,” you start, rubbing the bridge of your nose. You are so, so tired. “It makes my head hurt.”

* * *

“Can you take me to Vriska?” you say, not even an hour after she first found you. Her wings flutter.

“That didn’t take long,” she says, and there’s something in her voice that you can’t place. Amusement, maybe.

You snort. “Are you surprised?” She glances over at you.

“No,” she says, after a moment. “Not really.”

* * *

Aradia brings you to Vriska. On the way she tells you that they’ve been chasing some treasure, a crucial weapon of sorts. Aradia doesn’t put much stock in it, but you think that you might try to help, if you want to be useful. If Vriska lets you.

You’re nervous, more than you’ve ever been. You can feel it in your gut where your stomach is doing flips, and your jaw where your teeth strain to clench.

Aradia leads you to some shore, and you can make Vriska out, sitting down and staring out at the water, alone. Aradia doesn’t decide to sneak up on her, and the moment Vriska can make you out, she leaves you two alone.

You stop further away from her than necessary. She’s stood up. You’re both silent, and the only sounds you hear are the pounding of your heart and the ends of your blindfold fluttering in the breeze.

You can feel her looking at you, but you can’t determine her expression. Walking towards her after you’ve already stopped would seem forward, and you can’t afford to seem forward when you don’t have a purpose in mind. You grip your cane with both hands, twisting them nervously. You should’ve left the damn thing in the other dream bubble, now that you think about it. It carries bad memories.

The seconds stretch into minutes, and you figure that you owe it to her to say something first. You did kill her, after all.

“Vriska,” you start, and she shifts on her feet, cautious and expectant. But you don’t get any further. You don’t know what to say. You swallow hard.

She takes a breath, and she makes out a syllable before it catches in her throat. Her shoulders slump forward, and you groan in frustration.

“This is ridiculous!” you say, releasing your death grip on your cane. You drop it in the sand.

“Yeah,” she breathes, and lets out a laugh. “It is.”

You take a few tentative steps toward her.

“I’m dead,” you say, after a moment. It’s as good a place to start as any.

“I know,” she says, and you tilt you head at her. “Aranea told me,” she explains.

“How did she know?”

Vriska shrugs. “Beats me. She knows everything, or at least she acts like it.” You laugh at that, and she perks up a little. You smile.

She grows silent, studying you. “Come here, Terezi,” she says eventually, and you do as she says. When you reach her, she pulls you in and hugs you tightly, wrapping her arms around the whole of you. You grip the back of her coat, and you’re so relieved that you want to cry.

“I still can’t believe that you fucking killed me,” she says quietly. Her words don’t mean much, though, as she squeezes you tighter as she says them.

“I’m sorry I had to do that,” you murmur into her shoulder. Not _I’m_ _sorry I did that_ , because you’re done blaming yourself.

“It’s not your fault,” she says, pulling away to look at you.

“I know,” you say, not wanting to release her yet. “It’s not yours, either.”

She starts to protest at that, but you shush her and pull her back towards you.

“We’ll have that conversation,” you say. “But not today.”

**Author's Note:**

> So this was my first time writing from Terezi's point of view! Unfortunately my writing style fits better with Vriska's personality, but hopefully it turned out okay.
> 
> Feedback is appreciated!


End file.
